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      Ohio's quarter-mile early-voting lines? That's what voter suppression looks like | David Litt

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      In-person early voting started in Ohio this week, and in the state’s largest cities, it was a total mess. In Columbus, the line stretched for a quarter of a mile. In Cuyahoga county, the hours-long wait began before polls even opened.All of this was entirely predictable. Thanks to an Ohio state law passed in 2006 by a Republican-controlled legislature and signed by a Republican governor, the number of in-person early voting sites is limited to just one per county. That means Vinton County, a Republican stronghold in the state’s southeast that’s home to just 13,500 Ohioans, has approximately 97 times more polling-places-per-voter than Franklin County, the deep-blue bastion with a population of more than 1.3 million.The office of Frank LaRose, Ohio’s chief elections official, recently tweeted that “lines are due to enthusiasm”. But blaming voters for the long lines they endure ignores the massive, intentional disparity in resources between the more and less populous parts of the state. Ohio’s politicians have made voting far easier for Republicans and far more difficult for Democrats. But what makes the needlessly long lines that have appeared throughout Ohio’s cities particularly notable is that they are not merely the result of election mismanagement or an ad hoc act of voter suppression. Instead, they reflect a view of democracy that prioritizes the imaginary preferences of land over the very real preferences of people, and in so doing, undermines the principle of “One Person, One Vote”.To understand exactly what makes the actions of Ohio’s Republican politicians so insidious, and so antithetical to modern democracy, it’s important to understand the history of One Person, One Vote – a concept that sounds timeless, but in fact is younger than George Clooney. At the turn of the 20th century, as Americans began migrating from the countryside to cities, rural politicians came up with ways to retain power without having to retain population. The simplest way to do this was to avoid redrawing legislative district boundaries every year. The population of cities boomed – but the number of representatives allocated to them did not.By 1960, American representation, or lack thereof, had become almost farcical. Maricopa county, Arizona, which contained the city of Phoenix and more than half the state’s population, elected just one-third of the state’s representatives to Congress. “One state senator represented Los Angeles county, which had a population of more than 6 million people,” write authors Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel, “while another represented three northern California rural counties with a total population of 14,294.” Author Anthony Lewis provides an example from Connecticut: “177,000 citizens of Hartford elected two members of the state house of representatives; so did the town of Colebrook, population 592.” (The most egregious example of what political scientists call “malapportionment” was surely in New Hampshire, where one district’s assemblyman represented a constituency of three.)Another strategy politicians used to maintain control despite dwindling popular support was to distribute power by county rather than by population. The most infamous of these was Georgia’s “county unit system”. Created in 1917, the system gave each county a set number of votes in Democratic primaries: urban counties received six votes, towns received four, and rural counties received two. Atlanta’s Fulton county had a population 80 times larger than that of three least-populous counties combined, yet they received an identical six votes. Because Democrats dominated Georgia, the winner of the party primary was the de facto winner of the general election – which made the county unit system a powerful tool for disenfranchising urban voters in general, and Black voters (who were more likely to live in cities) in particular.These kinds of representation-skewing schemes were immoral. But for most of the 20th century, they weren’t illegal. For decades, the supreme court held that district populations were a political question the judiciary had no business deciding. But in 1962, the justices concluded that malapportionment couldn’t be corrected through the normal electoral process. It left voters powerless to reclaim their power. In Baker v Carr Justice William Brennan declared that malapportionment – if sufficiently egregious – violated the constitution.It’s hard to overstate the impact of the Baker decision. In the months that followed, district maps were struck down in a dozen states. The county unit system was overturned. In 1964, the court ruled that congressional districts, not just state legislative ones, were required to have roughly equal populations. As Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, notes in The Fight to Vote, 93 of 99 state legislative maps were redrawn in just four years.Chief Justice Earl Warren later called Baker v Carr the most important decision issued by his court. He also summarized the principle behind that decision perfectly. “Legislators represent people,” he wrote. “Not trees or acres.” That principle – that power belongs to the people rather than the land – is what we now call one person, one vote.Sixty years after Baker, the urban-rural divide in our politics is starker than ever. Democrats have become the parties of cities and the denser suburbs, Republicans the party of exurbs and rural areas. Democrats have won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections. But while the Republican party has lagged among America’s people, it represents the vast majority of America’s acres and trees.If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the people have shown themselves willing to fight for representative democracyWhich brings us back to Columbus and Cleveland, where brutally long voting lines have turned casting a ballot into a feat of endurance. It’s no longer possible to directly allocate votes by county (although that’s likely to be tested if Amy Coney Barrett joins the existing conservative majority on the court). But it is still possible to allocate voting resources by county, in an effort to make voting exponentially more difficult for urban voters than for rural ones. The goal of LaRose’s one-polling-place-per-county order is no different than that of the politicians who devised Georgia’s county unit system more than 100 years ago: diminish the political power of the cities at the expense of the countryside.Distressingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, it’s not just Ohio where one person, one vote is under attack. In Georgia’s 2018 election, Atlanta received far fewer voting machines per voter than rural, redder counties elsewhere in the state. States like Wisconsin have been gerrymandered to pack urban voters into a relative handful of districts while giving rural voters as many representatives as possible. Earlier this month in Texas, the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, limited the number of drop boxes for mail-in ballots to just one per county, even though the state’s most populous county has – and this is not a typo – 2,780,000% more residents than the least populous. No wonder that in Houston, long lines of cars are snaking outside Harris county’s single drop-off site.If there’s a silver lining in all this, it’s that the American people have shown themselves willing to fight for representative democracy. Thus far, the attacks on voting in states like Ohio and Texas seem to have backfired, leading to more awareness, more outrage and, ultimately, higher turnout. But in the long term, Americans must reckon with the fact that one of our two political parties increasingly sees representative democracy as either a hassle or a threat.In the 2020 election, there’s good reason to hope that the voters will stand up to defend our system of government. That said, they shouldn’t have to. Democracy shouldn’t be on the ballot every four years. If and when Democrats regain control of Congress, the White House or state governments across America, they’ll have plenty of challenges to tackle. But nothing will be more important – or ultimately, more essential to changing the country’s course – than reasserting a fundamental but fragile principle of our democracy: in America, the ultimate source of power is the people. Period.This article was amended on 15 October 2020 to clarify that the number of polling places per county was limited by Ohio state lawmakers, not the Ohio Secretary of State, as an earlier version said
      David Litt is an American political speechwriter and author of the comedic memoir Thanks, Obama: My Hopey Changey White House Years More

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      in World Politics

      Will Idlib Be the Final Move on Syria’s Chessboard?

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      Recent rumblings portend a grim new episode for Syria’s Idlib province. Stretching along the northwestern border with Turkey, Idlib became the last redoubt of forces that oppose President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, namely Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the National Liberation Front,  when Moscow and Ankara announced the creation of a de-escalation zone in the area two years ago. The 2018 agreement halted a Syrian government offensive that would have brought devastation to Idlib. An uneasy calm hangs over the province, but the delicate diplomatic balance that brought respite now looks close to collapse. Notably, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Syria in September prompting speculation that Moscow and Damascus are set to make a northward push against rebel forces.

      Around the same time, reports emerged of Syrian regime forces shelling opposition frontlines, while Turkey has brought military hardware across the border to bolster anti-Assad forces in the Idlib countryside. Local observers relate that both Russian and Turkish reconnaissance drones have been active over the city of Idlib and the surrounding areas. Syrian forces, backed by Russian airpower, now appear to be hitting HTS positions with more intensity.

      Entangled International Interests

      Idlib may prove to be the final chapter of the Syrian Civil War. But here, Turkey and Russia are the main players. Turkey has long propped up anti-Assad factions and has maintained a military presence in Syria’s north for several years. Meanwhile, it was the assertive intervention of Russia in 2015 that turned the war in Assad’s favor. Russian airpower has been a key factor in Syrian government forces’ advance toward Idlib and the regime’s ability to reclaim rebel-held territory.

      Is Assad Gearing Up for a Final Push in Syria?

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      In our research into the impacts of proxy actors in Middle Eastern conflicts, we interviewed a range of Syrian activists. All of them noted a tangle of relationships and alliances between a plethora of Syrian organizations and international sponsors. In particular, they highlighted the roles of Turkey and Russia, both in the conflict and in the humanitarian crisis Syria faces. One opposition figure expressed his gratitude to Turkey for accommodating Syrian refugees. Yet at the same time, he felt that Turkey’s military involvement had made a complex conflict environment more difficult to resolve. Another activist who had participated in ceasefire negotiations in 2015 noted the dominant role that Russia played in securing agreements.

      In general, Syrian figures we spoke with expressed concern at the intentions foreign powers may harbor for Syria. The prevalent feeling among our interviewees was that the challenges that Syria faces are ultimately for Syrians to solve and that foreign interventions made solutions even harder to find. Major powers jockeying for an advantage over regional rivals have clear geopolitical goals, the pursuit of which generally overrides the interests of local people.

      Local Impacts

      Even after the Russia-Turkey accord reached in 2018, Idlib has not been spared hostilities. As elsewhere in the Syrian conflict, civilians have borne the brunt of the violence. A UN report recorded “rampant human rights violations” in Idlib and western Aleppo in late 2019 and early 2020 as Assad’s forces pushed to retake the province despite the de-escalation agreement. Up to a million civilians were uprooted, the largest single displacement of people during the entire war. UN investigators detailed numerous instances where pro-regime forces bombarded schools, markets and hospitals. Investigators also accused HTS of indiscriminately targeting civilian areas.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In February, 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in a Syrian airstrike spurring Turkey to undertake a spate of retaliatory attacks. In the wake of this flare-up, Ankara and Moscow reached another deal to curtail hostilities. This latest agreement demonstrates once more that the fates of Syria and its hapless people are largely in the hands of external powers. It seems that the conflict is only in abeyance while powerful actors maneuver for advantage across the chessboard that Syria has become.

      In Idlib, the interests of the key players are clear. Ankara wants to maintain a foothold in Syria. Long calling for the removal of Assad and championing anti-regime forces, it plays the role of protector to Idlib’s militias and civilians fleeing the regime’s advance. Should Idlib fall, a new wave of refugees would surge toward Turkey, something that Ankara can ill afford. Russia, meanwhile, retains access to its only Mediterranean naval base thanks to its relationship with Assad, and thus Moscow wants to ensure the Syrian president’s longevity.

      Linking Damascus and the northern city of Aleppo, Idlib is a central piece of the strategic jigsaw for Assad. Retaking the province, which has been an opposition stronghold since 2015, would be highly symbolic, drastically weakening rebel groups and being another step toward the regime’s final victory.

      Machinations in Moscow and Ankara

      Domestic concerns in Turkey and Russia also come into play in what happens on the ground in Syria. Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin have both used international adventures to further their own agenda. Erdogan’s approval surged after authorizing forays into Syria against Kurdish-led forces in Afrin in early 2018 and in the northeast in late 2019. More recently he has intervened in Libya in support of the Government of National Accord. For his part, Putin rose to prominence at the turn of the millennium fighting Chechen insurgents and underlined his tough-guy credentials by strutting into Georgia in 2008 in a conflict over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

      Both leaders are currently under pressure, Erdogan as Turkey’s economy falters, and Putin facing criticism after the poisoning of Russia’s prominent opposition figure, Alexei Navalny. Creating a distraction by upping the ante in Idlib would be a convenient way of rallying domestic support. Heightened tensions between Russia and Turkey, each of which backs different sides both in Libya and in the escalating conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, further complicate matters.

      Significantly, other international interventions by Russia and Turkey have been against considerably weaker opponents. Do Eurasia’s two military heavyweights really want to directly face off in Idlib? Turkey and Russia maintain outwardly amicable relations, but they have different goals in Syria. Decisions made in Moscow and Ankara will determine whether the tenuous peace in Idlib endures. Should it fracture, it will be the long-suffering people of Syria, yet again, who will bear the greatest cost.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

      [*Dr William Gourlay and Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh are based in the Middle East Studies Forum at Deakin University, Australia. This research was facilitated by Carnegie Corporation of New York (Grant number: G-18-55949): “Assessing the impact of external actors in the Syrian and Afghan proxy wars.”] More

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      in US Politics

      US election: what a Biden or Trump victory could mean for Britain

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      US election: what a Biden or Trump victory could mean for Britain

      Boris Johnson and Donald Trump meeting on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York in September last year.
      Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

      It could be the most significant election for US foreign policy since 1940, with huge implications for the UK
      by Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

      Main image:
      Boris Johnson and Donald Trump meeting on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York in September last year.
      Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

      The British government has a long history of misreading America – from Lord Palmerston expecting the Confederacy to survive the civil war, to Ernie Bevin being shocked that the US would not pay the UK’s postwar bills, to Tony Blair believing in 2003 that he could ride the US military tiger in Iraq and create a democracy.
      Few serving or former British diplomats are confidently predicting the outcome of this November’s presidential election, or even whether an increasingly erratic Donald Trump will accept the result as legitimate. The collective delusion about the 2016 election hangs heavy.
      Between now and polling day, two fears will stalk the Foreign Office. The first is of a late October surprise – a Trump military showstopper in the Middle East or the South China Sea, designed to convulse America. The betting is that caution will prevail. “Trump talks very tough, but he has a habit of not following through” said Peter Ricketts, the former UK national security adviser.
      The second is of a November impasse – a constitutional crisis as Trump disputes the result. One former Foreign Office staff member said: “It is noticeable that Trump’s most consistent message this election is that it is rigged.” Kim Darroch, the former UK ambassador to Washington and an early Trump sceptic, notes all the preparations being made for a challenge in the supreme court.
      All observers agree that if the US can reach a consensus on the outcome, it will be the most consequential election for American foreign policy since 1940. The implications, in turn, for the UK and for the kind of government Boris Johnson will lead are enormous.
      Lord Ricketts points out that the UK is already at a historic turning point. “Put together Brexit, the return of muscular nationalism and the pandemic, you have an extraordinarily important moment, probably the biggest strategic moment facing the UK since the war. The US election only adds to that.”
      The outcome will throw up a particularly acute personal dilemma for Johnson. He knows Trump is wildly unpopular with the British electorate. The latest Pew research shows that only 19% of Britons have confidence in Trump.
      Yet if Trump wins, Johnson can reassure his party that rule-breaking populists still have a winning appeal for those who feel betrayed by mainstream politics. What have been described as “counter-order movements” will have shown they have not run out of steam. More

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      in World Politics

      Reworking US Policy in the Middle East and North Africa

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      US foreign policy has shifted dramatically from just a brief 20 years ago. This is not the making of Donald Trump, Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin. Rather, they are symptoms of forces that have been building since the post-Soviet era. With the ascendency of the US as the global superpower and the “Washington Consensus” as the pillar of economic development, it was easy to assume that Pax Americana was our legacy to the world.

      360° Context: The 2020 US Election Explained

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      In less than three generations, we are now less sure of our leadership and concerned — as are other nations — with the contradiction of a great power festering internally. Yes, the US certainly retains the world’s strongest military, economy, number of Nobel Prize winners and sometimes even Olympic gold medals. But America’s leaders are unsure of its place in the world, and they disagree on key issues: climate change and the environment, sustainable economic growth, support for international organizations, reengineering the social contract and similar deep-seated concerns.

      The US in the Region

      It is no surprise that there are many opinions on what US foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region will look like under an administration led by Joe Biden or Donald Trump. The only clear agreement is that there is no going back to 2000, 2008 or 2016. The world has changed in many respects. While we can discern a pattern of Trump’s preferences, Biden’s policies would reflect what he and his team learned from their time in the White House under Barack Obama and, hopefully, what he has learned in his almost 50 years of being in Washington. 

      Opinions about a return of Trump’s world vision run the gamut from doomsday to what could be better? For example, writing for Brookings, Thomas Wright exclaimed that “a second Trump term would make a lasting impact on the world right when it is at a particularly vulnerable moment. U.S. alliances would likely crumble, the global economy would close, and democracy and human rights would be in rapid retreat.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      This is hardly the view of the president’s supporters. They believe that international alliances, the global economy and promoting democracy and human rights have not secured stability or prosperity for the US, so why continue with policies that do not serve America’s vital interests? This brings us to the nub of the question: What are those interests that are literally worth fighting for?

      On the macro-level in the MENA region, it used to be simple: Israel and oil, with a secondary nod to trade and arms sales. This is no longer the case. Trump has put Israel on the road to control over its future by pressuring Iran and Hezbollah, continuing bilateral defense arrangements that enhance Israel’s qualitative edge, sealing the normalization of relations between the Israelis and some Arab countries, and ensuring that the UN Security Council will never pass another annoying resolution challenging Israel’s worldview.

      In world energy markets, Saudi Arabia has found itself outmaneuvered as the US can shift the supply paradigms to Asian markets by increasing its exports, which now makes America a more dangerous competitor than Russia. Even in arms sales and commerce, the US finds itself in tough competition with Russia, China and a host of regional producers — from Turkey to France and the UK.

      Regarding who are US allies and who are not, it appears that Trump favors leaving the Middle East and North Africa to its own devices, which includes supporting leaders who reflect his values of disdain for democratic limitations on their exercise of decision-making. This includes Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and the UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed. Trump’s penchant for transactional diplomacy is well illustrated by his treatment of the Kurds, Iraqis, the Syrian opposition, Turks, Iranians and others, often viewing diplomacy as a zero-sum competition.

      Does this mean a Trump foreign policy in the MENA region is without merit? Not if you are a supporter of Israel’s security, a hard-line approach on Iran’s dysfunctional role in the region and beyond, pro-arms sales as a tie that binds the US to its friends, and ending what seem to be “endless wars” that make no sense to many American voters.

      A Second Trump Administration?

      If Trump wins a second term in office, his administration would further refrain from direct action in places like Yemen, Libya, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt, again focusing on the benefit to US interests as the guiding principle. For weak states like those in North Africa as well as countries such as Lebanon, it will continue to be a tug-of-war within the State Department as to how best to support US interests in any bilateral relationship. The bigger the country (Egypt), the better endowed with energy resources (Algeria) or the more likely to be convinced that normalizing ties with Israel will be tolerated by its citizens (Sudan), the more attention it will get. As has been noted by a former US ambassador, “This will become a major priority of the next Trump administration and they will make foreign aid contingent on normalization agreements.”

      How this shakes out for Morocco and Saudi Arabia, both of which are targets of US-Israel diplomacy, is not clear as the two countries have special ties to Jerusalem not easily superseded by realpolitik. Don’t plan on seeing any reduction in US support for the Saudis in Yemen unless the Senate goes to the Democratic Party, which may force the president to deal with his friends in the Gulf.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Somalia remains an outlier, although its fits and starts toward democracy may draw the attention of policymakers who realizes the threat of the geostrategic encroachment of China and Russia in the Horn of Africa. As for Mauritania and Djibouti, like many Americans, most members of Congress can’t find them on a map, which leaves these countries open to the jaws of Russia and China.

      The great powers game in the MENA region is just beginning to be engaged as China has expanded its ports to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Its economic diplomacy is making inroads in a long and patient march to North Africa. Russia is not leaving Syria anytime soon and will continue to press Lebanon and Egypt to accept military assistance, as it will also do in Iran, much to the detriment of US–Israel interests.

      It would be quite short-sighted to minimize the roles of Iran and Turkey as regional powers in being able to affect key issues: Libya, Lebanon, Syria, eastern Mediterranean energy, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar, the use of mercenaries, arms sales and taking risks that are considered illogical to some Washington policymakers. Each must be considered on its own terms and with a close eye on their often expressed interests and weakening domestic support. While a paper can be written on each of these countries, suffice it to say that a second Trump administration will have to use much greater diplomatic finesse in convincing Erdogan to work with rather than against Washington’s interests.

      And a Biden Administration?

      The biggest challenge to an incoming Biden administration is to indicate how it will retain the best policies of the Obama administration while introducing initiatives that will strengthen perceptions of US commitment to act decisively. Many people in the Middle East and North Africa look at President Obama’s hesitation to act firmly in Syria and Libya, the hands-off treatment over Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and the uneven commitment to human rights as indications of weakness and inconsistency.

      A Biden administration would begin from a different set of values that define different interests than the Trump White House. Ironically, Joe Biden’s values have more in common with the internationalist agendas of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush than with the current Republican administration. The cornerstones of Biden’s platform include the primacy of diplomacy, building relationships and alliances, emphasizing multilateralism for conflict-resolution, and greater attention to human rights and rule of law.

      As an open letter of endorsement for Biden by former US ambassadors and Middle East experts states, while “each country faces its own unique issues, the core complaints of poverty, corruption, and a scarcity of freedom are a common challenge.” Many of Biden’s positions are aspirational — for example, assuming that the right combination of sticks and carrots will bring Iran back to the bargaining table while Russia and China are already working to bolster their regimes militarily and economically.

      Promoting human rights and democratic values are front and center, but one wonders how those values resonate with the current generation of leaders, many of whom ignore and suppress expressions of dissension and calls for change. Part of Biden’s pledge is to support economic and political reforms, which may be opposed by those regimes he seeks to move toward. These reforms include greater inclusiveness and economic development for the young, women and marginalized groups.

      Biden claims that his administration would not countenance regimes that deny the basic civil rights of their citizens, nor ones built on widespread corruption and cronyism or those that meddle in the affairs of neighboring states. There is a gnawing fear among pro-Israel Americans that he will veer from his traditional uncritical support for Israel and insist on an end to actions that undermine the possibility of a two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians. These include halting the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and stopping the annexation of Palestinian territory. Biden has already noted that he will restore economic and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians and reopen the US Consulate in East Jerusalem that serves the Palestinian communities.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Regarding Lebanon, the former vice president favors assisting its civil society and citizens to develop and implement policies that will be inclusive, and also supporting a dynamic state that reflects democratic values of equality and fairness. He mirrors the Trump administration in promising to continue support for the Lebanese armed forces. Biden also recognizes the need to sustain extensive humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees and host communities in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. What Biden won’t do, according to his statements, is continue to tolerate support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen and its pursuit and punishment of dissidents and critics inside the kingdom and elsewhere.

      While no specifics are mentioned regarding Biden’s policy on Syria beyond “standing with civil society and pro-democracy partners on the ground,” his campaign platform maintains the role of US leadership in the coalition to defeat the Islamic State group and restore stability and promote a political solution in partnership with others in the region.

      Although not an Arab country, Iran plays an outsized role in the Middle East. Biden has already noted that he will renegotiate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran — with a broader focus on ending Tehran’s regional interference, support of terrorism and militias, and production of missiles. A similar agreement tailored to the specifics of Erdogan’s endgame in the region is also critical if any of the goals mentioned by a Biden administration are to be realized.

      While these goal statements are well-crafted, the lack of details — while understandable — raises concerns considering challenges, such as needing to reenergize a dispirited US diplomatic corps, indifferent or hostile players in the region, and unsure allies in Europe and the Middle East and North Africa. The critical need to focus on America’s domestic economic and psychological revival in the coming years will also compete with international priorities. Of course, the disposition of the races in the Senate and House of Representatives are also critical to closing the gap between aspiration and implementation.

      The authoritarian regimes in the MENA region prefer the devil they know. Yet the youth, women and those who are marginalized are desperate for changes that incorporate their aspirations and are built on equality, justice and opportunity. Donald Trump and Joe Biden are both known in the Middle East and North Africa. It will be quite interesting to see how the region reacts on November 4.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      Amy Coney Barrett hearing: top Republican praises judge for being 'unashamedly pro-life' – live

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      Lindsey Graham lavishes praise on supreme court nominee
      Barron Trump had coronavirus, first lady reveals
      Barrett dodges abortion and healthcare questions
      Trump and Biden offer different visions of US role in world
      Trump in trouble as Florida’s seniors shift towards Biden
      Sign up for Fight to Vote – our weekly US election newsletter

      LIVE
      Updated

      Play Video

      Amy Coney Barrett questioned on third day of supreme court hearing – watch live

      Key events

      Show

      5.48pm EDT17:48
      Public hearing poortion ends

      5.00pm EDT17:00
      Today so far

      4.06pm EDT16:06
      Barron Trump had coronavirus, first lady reveals

      1.15pm EDT13:15
      Today so far

      12.33pm EDT12:33
      Third day of Barrett’s nomination hearings resumes

      12.01pm EDT12:01
      First break in today’s hearing

      10.27am EDT10:27
      Virginia voter registration deadline extended after technical failure

      Live feed

      Show

      5.48pm EDT17:48

      Public hearing poortion ends

      Next is a closed hearing on FBI background checks. Tomorrow the judiciary committee will set up a vote and hear outside witnesses.
      “You will be confirmed, God willing,” Graham said.

      Updated
      at 5.49pm EDT

      5.40pm EDT17:40

      Senator John Neely Kennedy, a Republican, used a Trump campaign talking point that Harris’ past career as a prosecutor deepened racial inequities to rebut her claim that systematic racism exists.
      You can read more about Harris past as a prosecutor here. The Trump campaign – while itself promoting a “tough on crime” attitude and railing against Black Lives Matter protestors – has nonetheless adopted progressive critiques of Harris’ record as “top cop”.
      Harris “thinks America is systemically racist – I think our history is the best evidence of that it is not,” said the senator from Louisiana, citing the Barack Obama presidency as proof. “With the blink of an eye, we went from institutionalized slavery to an African American president,” he said.
      After lobbing several softball questions at Barrett including (“Do you hate little warm puppies?”) Kennedy ended by asking: “Who does the laundry in your house?” (which I’m sure he also meant to ask Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch).
      It is worth noting that Barrett didn’t clearly answer this one either: “We run a lot of loads of laundry.”

      5.19pm EDT17:19

      Barrett also would not comment on whether she believes voting discrimination exists.
      Harris: Do you agree with Justice Roberts when he said voting discrimination still exists?
      Barrett: “I will not comment on what any justice said in an opinion, whether an opinion is right or wrong, or endorse that proposition.”

      Aaron Rupar
      (@atrupar)
      Under questioning from Kamala Harris, Amy Coney Barrett refuses to say if she thinks voting discrimination still exists pic.twitter.com/gv9KN904fu

      October 14, 2020

      5.14pm EDT17:14

      Harris took up questioning Barrett on climate change.
      Harris: Do you think COVID-19 is infectious?
      Barrett: Yes.
      Harris: Do you think smoking causes cancer?
      Barrett: I’m not sure exactly where you’re going with this… Yes, every package of cigarettes warns that smoking causes cancer.
      Harris: Do you think climate change is happening?
      Barrett: “Senator, again… You have asked me a series of questions that are completely uncontroversial, and then trying to elicit an opinion from me that is on a very contentious matter of public debate.”
      Climate change is not a contentious matter of public debate – about 8 in 10 Americans say that human activity is fueling climate change, per a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. But most importantly, climate change is not a contentious matter of scientific debate.

      5.00pm EDT17:00

      Today so far

      That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:
      The third day of Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination hearings is still unfolding. Barrett has been answering questions from the Senate judiciary committee for eight hours, and Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris is currently questioning the nominee.
      Lindsey Graham praised Barrett as “unashamedly pro-life,” describing her nomination as historic. “I have never been more proud of a nominee,” the Republican committee chairman said. “This is history being made, folks. This is the first time in American history that we’ve nominated a woman who is unashamedly pro-life and embraces her faith without apology. And she’s going to the court.”
      The first lady revealed Barron Trump had coronavirus. Melania Trump said Barron, her and the president’s 14-year-old son, tested positive for coronavirus but showed no symptoms. Barron and the first lady have both since tested negative, she said.
      Trump is en route to Des Moines, Iowa, where he will hold a campaign rally tonight. The president won Iowa by 9 points in 2016, but recent polls show Trump and Biden running neck and neck in the state.
      Virginia extended its voter registration deadline, after an accidentally cut cable caused the state’s online registration system to shut down yesterday. Virginia voters now have an additional two days to register.
      Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

      4.54pm EDT16:54

      Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris is now questioning Amy Coney Barrett. She is the last Democrat who will speak in this round of questioning.

      4.49pm EDT16:49

      Trump is en route to Iowa, a state that he won by 9 points in 2016. Polls currently show the president and Joe Biden running neck and neck in Iowa.
      The president will hold a rally in Des Moines tonight, and attendees will be greeted by this billboard when they arrive at the event site.

      Jim Acosta
      (@Acosta)
      Billboard outside Des Moines airport where Trump holds Iowa rally tonight. pic.twitter.com/XHix45wzlw

      October 14, 2020

      4.41pm EDT16:41

      Speaking to reporters before leaving for his Iowa rally, Trump very briefly addressed his son’s health before pivoting to praising Amy Coney Barrett.

      Aaron Rupar
      (@atrupar)
      Trump spent exactly one second answering a question about how his son Barron is doing after he tested positive for coronavirus pic.twitter.com/aiGXBSbHRZ

      October 14, 2020

      “Barron’s fine, and Amy is doing a fantastic job. We’re heading out to Iowa, and we have a big rally,” Trump said.
      The first lady said in a statement that Barron tested positive but experienced no coronavirus symptoms. He has since tested negative, as has the first lady.

      4.31pm EDT16:31

      Like other Democrats on the Senate judiciary committee, Cory Booker pressed Amy Coney Barrett on voting rights.
      As part of his questioning, Booker asked Barrett if she had ever waited in line for five hours to vote. She said no. Booker asked if she had ever waited an hour to vote. She said no.
      Booker compared those answers to the experience of many black voters in America, who often face long lines at their polling stations.

      4.22pm EDT16:22

      Trump said his son, Barron, is doing “fine” after testing positive for coronavirus.
      The president responded to a reporter’s question about Barron as he left for Des Moines, Iowa, where he is holding a campaign rally later tonight.
      Shortly before Trump’s departure, the first lady revealed Barron had tested positive but shown no coronavirus symptoms in a statement about her own experience with the virus.
      Melania and Barron Trump have both since tested negative, the first lady said.

      4.16pm EDT16:16

      Amy Coney Barrett told Democrat Cory Booker that she could not offer her opinion on whether it was wrong to separate immigrant children from their parents.
      “That’s a matter of hot political debate in which I can’t express a view or be drawn into as a judge,” Barrett said. “I can’t express a view on that.”
      The Democratic senator responded that he considered such matters to be “basic questions of human rights”.
      The Trump administration attracted severe criticism in 2018 after its “zero tolerance” immigration policy resulted in thousands of children being separated from their parents.

      4.06pm EDT16:06

      Barron Trump had coronavirus, first lady reveals

      Melania Trump released a statement about her experience with coronavirus, and the first lady revealed her son with the president, Barron Trump, tested positive for coronavirus.
      The first lady said 14-year-old Barron initially tested negative after the president was diagnosed, as the White House announced. But the White House did not reveal Barron’s later test came up positive.

      Melania Trump
      (@FLOTUS)
      To all who have reached out – thank you. Here is my personal experience with COVID-19 :https://t.co/XUysq0KVaY

      October 14, 2020

      “To our great relief he tested negative, but again, as so many parents have thought over the past several months, I couldn’t help but think ‘what about tomorrow or the next day?’,” the first lady said in the statement.
      “My fear came true when he was tested again and it came up positive. Luckily he is a strong teenager and exhibited no symptoms.”
      The first lady noted Barron has since tested negative again, as has she. Trump said her own experience with coronavirus was like “a roller coaster of symptoms in the days after” she was diagnosed.
      “I experienced body aches, a cough and headaches, and felt extremely tired most of the time,” Trump said. “I am happy to report that I have tested negative and hope to resume my duties as soon as I can.”
      The first lady added, “Along with this good news, I want people to know that I understand just how fortunate my family is to have received the kind of care that we did.”
      Trump said she continues to pray for the Americans who are currently struggling with coronavirus and their families.

      Updated
      at 4.09pm EDT More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Amy Coney Barrett pledges 'open mind' and plays down conservative record

      by

      Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump’s nominee to the US supreme court, returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for a final round of questioning about her judicial record and personal views, with her confirmation all but assured despite Democrats’ forceful opposition.Members of the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday attempted to dig deeper into the conservative judge’s views on the Affordable Care Act, which expanded healthcare cover to millions more Americans under Barack Obama’s signature piece of legislation, and abortion rights.Also on the agenda in this week’s hearings are same-sex marriage, gun control and any potential cases related to the result of the looming 2020 election.But Barrett, in the tradition of recent supreme court nominees, avoided answering directly about how she would rule on some of the most important issues that the court may be asked to address.Playing down the conservative positions she expressed in legal writings as an academic and in personal commitments she made as a private citizen, the 48-year-old appellate court judge she had no political agenda and would approach every case with “an open mind”.Barrett has been nominated to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon who died last month. The confirmation hearings have halted all other business on Capitol Hill as Republicans, eager to cement a conservative majority on the court for at least a generation, rush to confirm Barrett before the November election.Opening the session on Wednesday, after nearly 12 hours of questioning the day before, Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican of South Carolina and the chairman of the committee, celebrated Barrett’s almost inevitable confirmation as a momentous victory for conservatives, and particularly for conservative women, who he said have faced “concrete” social and cultural barriers in public life that do not exist for liberal women.“This is the first time in American history that we’ve nominated a woman who is unashamedly pro-life and embraces her faith without apology,” Graham said. “She is going to the court.”In moments of personal reflection during the hearings, Barrett suggested that mockery of her association with People of Praise, the insular Catholic community inspired by charismatic Christianity, as well as commentary about her large family, which includes two adopted children from Haiti, has been painful. But she said while faith was important to her personally, it would not influence her decisions on the supreme court bench.But she repeatedly declined to say how she would rule on a challenge to Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 supreme court decision that established a woman’s right to an abortion. But she declined again on Wednesday to characterize the decision as a “super-precedent” that must not be overturned.Democrats continued to press their case that her confirmation would imperil the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, arguing that Donald Trump and Republicans were rushing to confirm her before the court hears arguments that could decide the fate of the healthcare law next month. Again, Barrett insisted that she was not “hostile” to the ACA and would decided cases “as they come”.Republican state officials and the Trump administration are effectively seeking to invalidate the entire healthcare law based on a single part of it.Though she did not say how she would rule, Barrett expressed skepticism of this view in an extended exchange with Graham. In such cases, the judge said “the presumption is always in favor of severability” – a legal doctrine applied to congressional litigation that she said requires a court to strike down one element while preserving the rest of the law.Democrats have urged Barrett to recuse herself in the forthcoming case involving the ACA – as well as potential challenges to the result of the election – because Trump has repeatedly said that his judicial nominees will dutifully advance his agenda. In a vague reference to the president’s tan, Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, suggested that Trump’s words cast an “orange cloud” over Barrett’s nomination.Barrett declined to say whether she would recuse herself in either instance, only that she would consider the matter. Again, she maintained her independence from the executive branch and the president who nominated her, first to a seat on the US court of appeals for the seventh circuit, and then to the supreme court.Pressed by Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat of Vermont, Barrett would not say whether the president was allowed to pardon himself. She stated unequivocally that that “no one is above the law”, though cautioned that the supreme court has no real recourse to ensure that Americans, including the president, followed its orders.Republicans rushed to the judge’s defense, accusing Democrats of impugning her integrity as a judge.Recalling the 1987 nomination ofRobert Bork, which was derailed amid deep opposition from liberal groups and Democrats who warned that his confirmation would tilt the court to the right on key issues such as religion and abortion, senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, decried the “attempted Borking of Amy Barrett”.Republicans touted her adherence to “originalism”, an approach championed by Barrett’s mentor, the late justice Antonin Scalia, that aims to interpret the constitution as it was written centuries ago. Confronted by Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat of Delaware, with several of Scalia’s more controversial opinions, including a scathing dissent in a landmark case establishing the right for same-sex couples to marry, Barrett said that they shared a philosophy but would not always reach the same conclusions.“I hope you’re not suggesting I don’t have my own mind,” she said.But Coons was not persuaded, and announced that he would not vote to confirm her.“Nothing has alleviated my grave concerns that rather than building on Justice Ginsburg’s legacy of advancing privacy and equality and justice, … in fact, you will take the court in a very different direction,” he said.Owing to the proximity of the election, and the near-certainty of the outcome, many senators have used the nationally televised hearings as an opportunity to amplify their campaign messages. Graham, locked in a tight race for re-election in South Carolina, was effusive in his praise of the conservative judge, who Republicans hope will energize their base while appealing to suburban women leaving the party over Trump.“I have never been more proud of the nominee than I am of you,” Graham said to Barrett. “This is history being made, folks.”Away from the hearing room, the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden told donors that Barrett “seems like a decent person” but said it was “an abuse of power” to confirm her to the supreme court before the November election.The committee is expected to vote on 22 October, as Trump pressures the Senate to confirm Barrett before the November election. More

    • 88 Shares189 Views

      in World Politics

      The Rise and Fall of US Democracy

      by

      A functioning democracy requires an educated, informed population that understands its role in the processes that define how the democratic nation is governed. Ordinary citizens have two opportunities for actively participating in those processes. They can run for office or help those who are running for office get elected. And they can vote. Most people settle for voting. Actually, in the best of years, only slightly more than the majority of eligible voters actually vote. American democracy has never fired on all its cylinders.

      The failure of half of Americans to participate is surprising because America has sedulously made the effort to educate its future voters. From day one, every schoolchild in the United States learns not only that the form of government they live under is a democracy but also that it is a regime defined by its commitment to freedom. Teachers, seconded by the media and the politicians who appear in the media, relentlessly drill into them the idea that the US is uniquely free, in ways that no other nation can claim. Americans possess unbridled freedom to speak out and to act, even in socially eccentric ways. For some, it even includes the freedom to shoot.

      The 2020 US Election Explained

      READ MORE

      Although democracy and freedom are not synonymous, every schoolchild is taught to believe that they are. This has created a curious phenomenon in US culture: the idea that what they have is less the freedom to speak out, act and influence their community than the freedom from interference by other people — and especially by the government. In other words, many Americans understand that the most fundamental freedom is the freedom to be left alone. Instead of defining the individual’s field of possible action and participation, in their minds, democracy defines the right to avoid all action and participation.

      The Art of Democratic Identity

      Children who enter first grade and learn for the first time that they live in a free country may be left wondering what an unfree country is. A literal-minded 6-year-old — such as this writer who entered first grade during the Cold War — may naively wonder why, in a country that our teacher insisted is free, we have to pay for the things we consume. After all, any child who had ever been to a restaurant, a movie theater or a hotdog stand could sense what Milton Friedman would later affirm: There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

      My teacher’s message, of course, had nothing to do with the price of things. We would learn about price, cost and value later. Like our parents, one day we would have a job, a house and a dog and be saddled with the task of fending for ourselves in a competitive world. We weren’t quite prepared to understand that our teacher’s riffing on the fact that we were a “free country” was, at the time, simply about the fact that another country with nuclear capacity, the Soviet Union, wasn’t free. We children knew nothing about Russia, the Iron Curtain, communism, capitalism and everything else that was talked about on the news, mainly because we watched cartoons on television. Our exposure to Cold War propaganda was only just beginning.

      On that first day of school, we began the task of memorizing the secular prayer that would kickstart the learning process every day of our schooling for the following 12 years: the pledge of allegiance. Its syntax was incomprehensible, but it sounded comfortingly patriotic. The abstract idea of allegiance was too much for our young minds to deal with. But the key words, beginning with “the flag,” offered something concrete and allowed us to begin to understand that our job was to learn to comply with a system we couldn’t yet begin to understand.

      “The flag” had meaning because we could see it in front of us, whereas “the Republic for which it stands” remained a mystery. Even “one nation” failed to make much sense to any of us since we hadn’t yet studied the Civil War — a moment in history when there were briefly two — but clearly one seemed to be the right number of nations to belong to. “Under God” confirmed what most of our parents had already told us, though the idea of who that being was differed from family to family.

      It was the last six words of the pledge that held some meaning and still resonate in people’s minds: “with liberty and justice for all.” That’s when we began to learn what it meant to be a democracy. This became reinforced later, when we began studying the salient facts of history, including the importance of the first three words of the Constitution: “We the people.” The picture of a democratic society where people, on the one hand, are free (both to vote and to be left alone) and, on the other, treated fairly and equally, combined with our belief in the goodness of the complete system, had begun to fall into place.

      Every official text we would subsequently discover, starting with the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that “all men are created equal,” delivered the message that we, the citizens (or at least those who could vote), collectively controlled the form of a government that would protect us from various kinds of evil forces. Among those evil forces were, historically speaking, the European monarchies to the east against whom we revolted, and the rampaging Native Americans to the west.

      The first group, the European kings, defined the enemy in our battle for freedom in the 18th century. The second group, the Indians on horseback, defined the 19th-century enemy. Once those two had been neutralized, all that was left in the 20th century, following our victory over the Germans and Japanese in World War II, was the Soviet Union.

      Things had now become remarkably simple. We were a democracy that thrived thanks to our freedom, and especially the freedom of our markets. The Soviet Union was a communist dictatorship with a five-year plan. We were consumers with the widest possible range of choice who knew we would be left alone to consume whatever we chose. Moreover, they were atheists, and we, despite our freedom to believe or not believe, were “under God.” They had the mission of spreading across the globe their elaborate system of government interference in every aspect of everyone’s lives. In contrast, we knew, as President Woodrow Wilson had clearly established decades earlier, that our mission was to “make the world safe for democracy.”

      Reconciling Democracy and Predestined Greatness

      Unlike the Soviets, we had the power to elect our leaders. They had a single party, the Communist Party. We had two, a consumer’s choice. We understood the principles of democracy. The first of those principles consists of having a constitution with a bill of rights. The second is to have regularly planned elections permitting to choose which of the two parties we wanted to be governed by. Any wonderful and wild idea was possible, so long as one of the two parties embraced that idea.

      Communism, of course, or its twin sister, socialism, represented impossible ideas, not only because they made no sense in a consumer society, but because neither of the parties would embrace such ideas. Nevertheless, some feared that the Democrats might be tempted by socialism or even communism. And so, enterprising politicians committed to the idea of democratic choice invented the House of Un-American Activities, making it clear to political consumers — i.e. voters — that some choices, deemed political heresy, would not be available in the political marketplace. Heresy can, after all, happen in a free country that is also “under God.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Throughout our schooling, our teachers and textbooks led us to assume that the nation’s founders, like Woodrow Wilson more than a century later, had one mission in mind, though with a more local focus: making North America safe for democracy. According to the narrative we received, it was in the name of democracy that the Founding Fathers decided to break away from the despotism of the British monarchy. This created the enduring belief that the founders were visionaries intent on creating what would later become known as the “world’s greatest democracy.”

      It’s a trope US politicians today never tire of repeating. The Democrat, President Harry Truman, may have been the first when he uttered the phrase in 1952, just as the Cold War was picking up steam. He cited America’s “responsibilities as the greatest nation in the history of the world.” Like George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and any Republican, President Donald Trump deems the US to be not only “the single greatest nation in the history of the world” but also “the greatest economy in the history of the world.” In contrast, this year’s Democratic candidate for the presidency, former Vice President Joe Biden, more modestly characterizes it as merely “the greatest nation on earth.” Perhaps he hasn’t studied history as carefully as Truman and Trump have.

      It isn’t clear whether Cassius Clay, before becoming Muhammad Ali — who famously boasted he was “the greatest” — was inspired by patriotic politicians at the time vaunting the economic power and military prowess of the nation or whether today’s politicians who keep insisting on greatness are inspired by Ali. Donald Trump is not the only American to resonate to the idea of greatness. In every domain, Americans seek to determine who is the GOAT, the Greatest of All Time. There must always be a winner, someone who is totally exceptional.

      American exceptionalism is not just an idea. It has become a dogma that leaders must embrace. Violating it or even trying to nuance it can prove disastrous. At a press conference in Europe in April 2009, fielding a question from a Financial Times reporter, newly installed President Barack Obama tried to limit his patriotic hubris when he said, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” This was too much for many Americans, such as Republican Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Fox News, who saw this as proof that Obama wasn’t a true believer in American exceptionalism. How could he dare to reduce the nation’s prestige to that of has-been countries like the UK and Greece?

      The Historical Truth

      At the nation’s very beginning, the founders sought and fought simply to create a nation that was no longer attached to Britain. It was a first step in the direction of just wanting to be left alone. They grappled first with the idea of how whatever emerged might define itself as a political entity. After that came the question of how it should be governed. Because of the diversity of the colonies, the founders could agree on the idea of dispersed authority, leading to the idea of a federation that could be thought of as a single federal state. They also, and nearly as emphatically, agreed that it was not about democracy.

      In 1814, John Adams, a revolutionary leader and the second president of the United States, famously responded with this curt judgment to one of his critics who berated him for maligning democracy: “Democracy never lasts long.” Lambasting what he referred to as the “ideology” of democracy, Adams expressed his horror at “democratic rage and popular fury” and insisted that democracy “soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide.” The chaos of the French Revolution, which they considered an exercise in democracy, had left a bad impression on the minds of the Founding Fathers.

      Alexander Hamilton, who died prematurely in a duel 10 years before Adams drafted his letter to John Tyler (but who miraculously came back to life on Broadway in a rap-based musical comedy exactly two hundred years later) emphatically agreed with Adams: “We are a Republican Government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy.” Both men had studied ancient history and witnessed the chaos of the French Revolution. Hamilton concluded: “The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      The idea of democracy got off to a bad start in the young republic. And yet, most Americans today assume that US democracy was born with the drafting of the US Constitution. Even if the Founding Fathers clearly stated their preference for the idea of a republic ruled by a patrician elite and sought to define the young nation as fundamentally the opposite of a democracy, for generations, Americans have tended to believe that the Constitution embodied and validated democratic principles.

      Obsessed by the attribute of greatness, Americans also continue to believe that the US deserves the title of “the world’s greatest democracy.” This is a notion that has the potential to irritate people who are not American. Last year, Dutch blogger Moshe-Mordechai Van Zuiden, writing for The Times of Israel, bitterly contested the insistence on American greatness. He lists 10 reasons why the US electoral system in no way reflects the ideal or even the messy reality of effective national democracies.

      After excoriating a two-party system offering “only a choice between two people widely despised,” as happened in 2016 and may even be the case in 2020, he makes a more fundamental complaint: “Top Dog Wins is not democracy. It’s a dictatorship of the majority.” All of the 10 points made by this brash Dutchman are well taken. Despite their national pride, more and more Americans are ready to agree.

      The Last Election

      Americans are clearly unaware of the fact that the revered founders believed that if democracy were to take hold, it would lead to the collapse of a fragile nation. The president who successfully marketed the idea of democracy for the first time, changing the course of America’s political culture, was Andrew Jackson, the president Donald Trump most admires (after himself). It was during Jackson’s presidency that Alexis de Tocqueville wrote and published “Democracy in America.” Thanks to the French aristocrat’s writing and Jackson’s deeds, including displacing and sometimes massacring native tribes, the label stuck.

      It subsequently became dogma that the United States not only is a democracy but exemplifies the ideal of what democracy should be. Abraham Lincoln went on to provide the concept of democracy with a permanent advertising slogan when he called it a “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” By the time of Lincoln and the imminent Emancipation Proclamation, the idea of “people” had taken on a much broader meaning than at the time of the drafting of the Constitution.

      As Van Zuiden and others have pointed out, the electoral system in the US was never designed to function as a true democracy. Nevertheless, the belief was solidly instilled that democracy was in the nation’s DNA. It has withstood numerous assaults along the way and only recently begun to reveal some serious flaws that risk undermining Americans’ unquestioning belief in its virtues. For future observers of US history, the illusion of democracy as the basis of government may technically have expired in December 2000 when nine Supreme Court justices, and not the people or even the states, elected George W. Bush as president. At the time and amid such confusion, few had the courage to acknowledge that Bush’s election reflected a permanent change in their perception of democracy.

      The chaos of this year’s election, characterized by the twin evils of a persistent pandemic and the personality of Donald Trump, may well be the election that dispels all remaining illusions. In 2021, a new approach to understanding the relationship between the people and the nation’s institutions will most likely begin to emerge. The rupture with past traditions has been too great for the old dogmas to survive intact.

      Embed from Getty Images

      It’s impossible to predict what form that seismic shift in the political culture will take. It now looks more than likely — though prudence is still required — that if democratic processes play out according to recognized rules, Joe Biden will by the 46th president of the United States. But there is no guarantee that democratic processes will play out in any recognizably legitimate way, partly because the COVID-19 pandemic has created a physical barrier to the already troublingly chaotic conduct of traditional elections whose results pass through the archaic Electoral College, and partly because President Donald Trump will be highly motivated to disturb, delay and possibly cancel whatever validated outcome emerges. But further complications and a practically infinite series of complementary risks are lying in the offing. The risk of uncontrollable civil unrest, if not civil war, is real.

      Whatever the official result of the presidential election, whether it becomes known in the immediate aftermath of November 3 or sometime in January, it will be the object of contestation and possibly unpredictable forms of revolt by the citizens themselves. Like any episode of social upheaval, there is a strong chance that it will be quelled.

      Biden’s Dilemma

      But even if quashed and silenced, it certainly will not be resolved. The most favorable scenario for neutralizing the revolt of the Trumpian right would be a landslide victory for Biden, with the Democrats retaking control of the Senate while maintaining and increasing their majority in the House. But even so, the losers will certainly cry foul.

      A resounding majority for Biden and the Democrats would nevertheless buttress what remains of the population’s belief in democracy, legitimizing Biden’s claim to govern the nation. But even in the best of scenarios, a landslide would still leave Biden in a fragile, if not precarious position. Biden has done next to nothing to unite his own party. A Democratic victory will incite the young progressives to contest his legitimate control over an aged and aging party establishment. Gallup reports that “Americans’ frustration with the parties is evident in the 57% of Americans saying a third party is needed.”

      That figure has been stable for at least the past 10 years, but the level of frustration has been magnified by the presence of uninspiring candidates in both parties. As governing structures, both dominant parties have been seriously fragilized in the past two elections, the Republicans by Trump’s successful assault on their traditions and the Democrats by the nearly successful challenge of Bernie Sanders and the party establishment’s resistance to change.

      If elected, Biden will be challenged on the right by the combined force of fanatical believers in Trump as the messiah and hordes of libertarians appalled by the prospect of more “big government.” He will be challenged on the left by the progressives who not only oppose his tepid policies but no longer believe in the integrity of the Democratic Party. If it was just a question of managing the personal rivalries within his party, as it was for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, all might be fine. But with a prolonged pandemic, an out-of-control economic crisis, increasingly lucid and effective racial unrest and a growing anti-establishment sentiment across much of the right and the left, reinstalling the establishment that preceded Trump and restoring faith in its ability to govern will be a task logically beyond the capacity of 78-year-old Biden.

      The End of an Era

      And those issues only begin to define the challenges Biden will be facing. In an essay in The New Criterion earlier this year, James Pierson observed the very real potential for social collapse: “Yet today the United States seems headed in a different direction: toward pluralism without consensus — a nation-state without a national idea — and towards animus among racial, religious, regional, and national groups.” In his article, Pierson deftly summarizes the history of the nation from the convergence of disparate colonies into a “union” and its need for imperial expansion to maintain its unity. Historically speaking, both convergence and expansion are no longer what they used to be.

      Pierson claims that before the Civil War and the victory of the Union forces, the US had not really decided what it was. He asks the question, “what was it: union, republic, or empire — or a combination of all three? Whatever it was, it was not yet a nation.” He claims it only became a nation-state “over a ninety-year period from 1860 to 1950, an era bookended by the Civil War and World War II, two great wars for liberal democracy, with World War I sandwiched in between.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Pierson credits Abraham Lincoln with creating the democracy that eventually came to dominate the world in the 20th century. Although assassinated by John Wilkes Booth before he could begin to implement his plan, Lincoln effectively created a political culture or system of belief that has only begun to fray in the last few decades. Pierson describes Honest Abe’s ideological triumph. “Lincoln envisioned a nation held together by a ‘political religion’ based upon reverence for the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence.” It was a nation “held together by loyalty to political institutions and abstract ideals.’”

      Pierson believes that that stable system began to dissolve after 1950, when what had been clearly a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) culture began to lose its capacity to impose its norms. He concludes, somewhat nostalgically: “It is no longer possible for the United States to go forward as a ‘cultural’ nation in the form by which it developed between 1860 and 1950. Whether or not this is a good thing is beside the point: it has happened, is happening, and will continue to happen.” And then, fatalistically, he adds: “These developments leave the United States without any strong foundations to keep itself together as a political enterprise — in a circumstance when its increasing diversity requires some kind of unifying thread. What will that be? No one now knows.”

      Pierson’s description of cultural decline echoes the thesis of Samuel Huntington’s book, “Who Are We?” It expresses a sentiment that Trump exploited with his slogan “Make American Great Again.” Pierson seems to recognize that a return to the good old WASP order, wished for by Huntington and Trump (and perhaps Pierson himself), is simply not going to happen.

      Joe Biden has promised to provide the thread that will unify the nation. Pierson believes that’s an impossible task. Others, focused on the possibilities of the future rather than a nostalgia for the past, claim it can be done. But Biden, though more conciliatory than Trump, clearly lacks the vision and the personality required to achieve it. And, of course, another Trump victory would only fragment the culture further and faster.

      The obvious conclusion should be that there is little choice for a politician who wishes to survive intact other than to move forward boldly and accept to resolve some serious historical ambiguities and overturn a number of institutions that have created a situation of political sclerosis and accelerated cultural decline. There are plenty of ideas to work with. Some of the younger members of the Democratic Party have demonstrated the kind of energy needed to achieve success. And the population will not be averse to change if they see it is intended to cure the disease and not just temporarily relieve the pain. The opioid crisis has at least taught them that mere pain relief is a dead end.

      The problem is that there will be resistance, though it will not come from the people. They know what they want. A majority wants to see expanded choice and at the very minimum a third party, simply because they no longer trust the two parties that have been running the show. An even clearer majority supports single-payer health insurance. A majority among the younger generations and possibly the entire population expects a serious and thorough response to climate change. But as the actions of past presidents have demonstrated, changing the way of life of a society of consumers appears to be too much to ask of politicians.

      Once the dust has settled from the election — unless that dust becomes radioactive while waiting for definitive results — 2021 is likely to be a year of confused political maneuvering and deep social instability. It will undoubtedly be a period of crisis. In a best case scenario, it will be the type of crisis that enables the nation to focus on a serious project of transformation. Those who see a Biden victory as a chance to return to the former status quo will attempt to manage the crisis, but they will inevitably be disappointed.

      That includes traditional donors, Wall Street, Hollywood and the vast majority of the political class. The two-dimensional chessboard with its 64 squares that they have been playing on for decades has now acquired a third dimension. Their expertise in pushing around the same pieces, according to the same rules on the same traditional chessboard, has lost its validity.

      Fragile Simulacrum

      History has already overtaken the political potential of a fragile simulacrum of a democracy that was never meant to be a democracy. No historian tracing the events as they played out over more than two centuries should be surprised that, while maintaining the illusion of democracy, the system evolved to function essentially as an elaborate, well-armed oligarchy. The oligarchy will use every power it has in its high-tech arsenal, including new forms of apparent generosity, to stabilize those institutions that best resist the seismic forces that have already begun cracking the entire system’s foundations.

      Even if it achieves some form of success and reaches what appears to be a state of relative stability, the world it believes it still controls will be very different and will begin evolving in highly unpredictable ways.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Many are predicting collapse. Given the degree to which an individualistic and corporatist culture has undermined most of the principles of human solidarity, collapse may well be the inevitable outcome. But collapse of what? Will it be the supposedly democratic political structures, traditions or ideologies? Will it be the economy? Or, as the coronavirus pandemic has shown, will it be human health, to say nothing of the health of the planet?

      Voters in the November 3 election should be asking themselves not just whom they want to vote for, but a much more immediate question that is nevertheless difficult to answer. What do Biden and his future team think about all the above questions? Are they prepared? What do they seriously think they might do about them as soon as the cracks start appearing, many of which are already visible?

      In the run-up to an election, politicians are unlikely to blurt out the truth, especially if it involves taking on serious problems whose solutions will inevitably cause pain in certain quarters. They will typically try to deal with three somewhat contradictory concerns. Keep the people happy. Reassure the donors. Prepare the next round of unholy alliances just to be certain they will be able to get something done. And then the big question arises: When it comes to taking hold of the reins of power, whom will they accept to disappoint? But the real question is this, whom can they afford to disappoint?

      We are left asking ourselves whether John Adams was right when he wrote that democracy never lasts long. If Biden is elected and serves two terms (reaching the age of 88 at the end of his second term), the kind of democracy the US has created will have lasted exactly two hundred years. John Adams probably would consider that a long time.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More